


On the Dark Horizon

by ShowMeAHero



Category: DCU
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 17:31:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16727829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: Dick fucked up. Damian tries to piece him back together.





	On the Dark Horizon

**Author's Note:**

> Playing fast and loose with canon here. I'm just slamming different things together in any way I want, because I'm all up in my feelings.
> 
> Title taken from ["The Call"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNsQewlFtEs) by Regina Spektor.

Dick just keeps staring at the wall.

He’s been staring at the wall for a few hours, he thinks. At least. Since he woke up. Whenever that was. When he closes his eyes, he sees blood and bullets and a face in the dark standing over him. He can’t close his eyes. He can’t leave the house. He’s supposed to be the good guy, and  _ now— _

Well, now. Now, he’s nothing. If he’s not the good guy, he’s  _ nothing,  _ and he lost that a while ago. He doesn’t bring justice. He doesn’t help the city. He’s finally fallen to the other side, to the darker side of things. He became a cop because all the other cops were shit, and now  _ he’s  _ a shit cop. He became Nightwing because the city needed someone who knew goodness was still possible, and now he’s swallowed by horror and darkness.

Dick hears a knock at the door. He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything. Whoever it is will come in or leave regardless of his answer. Everyone he knows is too forceful for their own good. Himself included, he supposes.

“Richard?” a voice asks, and Dick almost huffs a laugh. He doesn’t, but it’s a close thing. The door pushes open, a sliver of light from the hallway breaking the darkness in the room. Dick thought he was in his bedroom, but, when the room is illuminated, he realizes he’s on a sofa in the den. Disorienting. Ace comes sprinting into the room, leaping up onto the sofa and sprawling across Dick’s legs. Dick doesn’t move.

“Are you awake?” Damian asks. Dick shifts to look for him, and he finds him, standing in the doorway. He’s so young. Dick thought he might have been a good older brother to Damian, maybe even a good father figure. Better than Bruce, he thought. Now, he doesn’t think so. Corrupted. Ruined. Damian deserves better.

“Yeah,” Dick says. His voice is scratchy. “What’s up? You need something?”

“No,” Damian says. He shuts the door behind himself and flicks on one of the lamps. He stands there for a long moment. Dick feels analyzed. He can feel Damian scrutinizing him. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just tired,” Dick tells him. Damian sits in the armchair next to the sofa. His feet don’t reach the ground. He’s so,  _ so  _ small. He’s so young. Dick wants to wrap him up and put him somewhere safe. Damian would never let him do that, of course. He’s too adult, even now. Too independent. He’s just a kid, but he’s so much else.

“That’s bullshit,” Damian says.

“Watch it, Dami, Jesus,” Dick replies. He rubs at his face. Damian’s broke the cycle of staring and wallowing, but Dick’s still feeling morose and quiet.

“Well, it is,” Damian tells him. "You've been like this for days. Something happened. What happened?” Dick shakes his head. “Grayson.”

“Damian, this isn’t— This isn’t something you can just talk your way through,” Dick tells him. “It’s worse. I fucked up.”

“So?” Damian asks. Like it’s really that easy. “Learn from it. Move on.”

Dick  _ does  _ laugh this time. It’s humorless. Damian’s watching him carefully when Dick shifts, props himself up on his elbow to look at him. “I let someone die.”

Damian is silent. Dick falls back against the sofa, covers his face with his hands. Ace is a comforting weight on his legs.

“Who?” Damian asks.

“Does it matter?” Dick shoots back.

“Of course it does,” Damian replies. “They probably deserved it. If you let— You wouldn’t do that for nothing.”

“He was… threatening,” Dick says. “You. And Jay, and Tim. I couldn’t— I don’t know. I didn’t stop Ta— I should’ve. That’s my  _ job.” _

“Your  _ job,  _ if you want to call it that, is to keep people safe,” Damian reminds him. “You kept us safe. Not that any of us need to be kept safe. We can take care of ourselves.”

“Damian,” Dick says. He doesn’t know what he means by it. He just means  _ Damian.  _ Damian scoots forward on the armchair, sits at the very edge and leans forward.

“Think about it,” Damian says, because he’s infuriating. “What if he had killed… I don’t know. What if he got to Drake? Hm? Then how would you have felt?”

“Jesus Christ,” Dick says, rubbing at his face. He pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“Richard.”

“Horrible, alright?” Dick snaps. “I would’ve— I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

They’re silent again. For a long time. Eventually, Damian stands, and he crouches next to the couch. Dick just watches him, waits for him to do something. Damian squats there, staring at Dick with those piercing eyes. Too blue. He looks a lot like Bruce, like this, studying him this way.

“Everybody is worried about you,” Damian eventually says. “They won’t say anything, but they’re worried. You’re not yourself.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” Damian tells him. Matter-of-fact. “And you know you’re not, and we know you’re not. Acting like you are is a fool’s errand.”

“Where do you pick up this shit?” Dick groans. He sits up, shuffles around so he’s sitting upright on the sofa, leaning against the back. Ace whines and drops his head in Dick’s lap. Dick just strokes his head, scratches behind his ears.

“I’m going to be fine,” Dick amends, after a moment. “I just need time.”

“You had time,” Damian says. “Now, we need action.”

“And what do you suggest we do?” Dick asks. “I can’t bring him back.”

“No,” Damian replies. They’re quiet again. “I’m not— You know, it’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

“It is,” Damian tells him. Forceful. He’s so much Bruce’s son, but he’s also so,  _ so  _ much Dick’s little brother. “I would’ve done the same thing. Drake or— any of them. Would have done the same. I know it.”

“You’ll never have to,” Dick says. Damian straightens up, hesitates for a moment. He sits down next to Dick on the sofa. Both of them are like wild animals, circling the other one. Holding out a hand, trying to remain still enough to get the other to come to their palm. Dick wonders how the fuck they both got to this point.

“I might have to,” Damian tells him. “Someday.”

“No,” Dick says. “You—” He wants to say,  _ You’ll never have to,  _ but this is Damian. He’ll put himself in those situations. They’re all so fucked up.

“Yeah,” Damian says. “So, I get it.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

“But I do,” Damian replies. Ever since… Well, there’s been a whole lot of everything. Damian doesn’t really open up, the kid’s a clam. He’s had a rough go of it, but so has Dick, and he’s tried his goddamned best to make things easier for Damian. Damian makes things hard for himself, sometime, but it’s a rough world to be a part of at the best of times, let alone when you’re living in the shadows like they do.

“I’m fine,” Dick says again.

“It’s okay not to be,” Damian tells him. “We know you’re not. You have to do something. The city needs you. We— I— Hm.”

Damian stops there. He seems like he’s leaning into saying something else, but he doesn’t go on. Dick wonders what he wants to say, but he doesn’t push, because it’s Damian. He’d snap shut like a trap if Dick tried. Instead, he shifts to stretch his arm out along the back of the sofa. Inviting Damian to shift closer, if he wanted. Neither of them moves, for a long moment, before Damian readjusts his position and leans into Dick’s side. Dick drops his arm, wraps it around Damian, and the two of them sit there like that for a long, long while. The silence is finally comfortable instead of fragile.

“Alfred gave me a list with names and numbers of therapists,” Damian eventually says. “He said he vetted them all himself. I trust him.”

“Thank you,” Dick says. “I’ll—”

“Don’t,” Damian tells him. Dick doesn’t know how he knew he was going to say  _ I’ll be fine,  _ but he is Damian. He could probably predict the future accurately if he tried. “Just use it. Get back to normal. I— The city misses Nightwing. And Officer Grayson. I think they might need you.”

“Stupid,” Dick comments. Damian makes that little  _ tsk  _ sound he makes sometimes.

“Do you have anyone else?” Damian asks. From any other person, it would sound ridiculously judgmental, and probably pitying. From Damian, it’s just a question.

“No,” Dick replies. “Not right now.” It’s not strictly true, but he doesn’t have anyone he trusts enough besides the people under this roof. He should probably go back to his apartment soon, but he’s finding it hard to want to, in this moment. He misses his family.

“Then stay,” Damian says. Like it’s that easy. Like he can read minds. Like he can just warp the world, twist it and form it and shape it, change it to what he wants it to be. Dick thinks that Damian might just think it’s possible. Dick knows better. “For a little while, anyways. Get better. Back to normal.”

“Do you ever think about what we do?” Dick asks. Damian shifts; Dick can feel his head on his chest. He’s tipped his head back to look at him. Dick readjusts, so he can look down at him. Damian’s just staring at him, waiting. “It’s fucked up. Why do we do this?”

“We have to do it,” Damian tells him. “Nobody else will do it. Nobody else is strong enough.”

Dick goes quiet. He pats Damian on the cheek, and Damian swats him away, more out of playful instinct than anything else. Dick drops his head back against the sofa, exhaling sharply as he looks up at the ceiling, and Damian settles back in. Dick can hear him scratching Ace’s head. He rests his head against Dick’s chest again, and Dick knows that if he says anything about it or even moves slightly, it’ll shatter everything, and Damian will probably leave. So, he doesn’t. He doesn’t move, or speak. He just sits, lets his little brother and their dog weigh him down, and tries to forget about the failures shadowing him.

**Author's Note:**

> I also actually wrote some books! It was a long road but, I did it! Ta-da! If you want to read either of them, shoot me a message!
> 
> I have a blog now to request imagines - I just like to make people happy. Submit requests [here!](https://imagine-in-the-fandoms.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


End file.
